Orpheus Emails Eurydice
by Laila Amado
I hope this email finds you well.
I hope this email finds you spending the winter holidays in the Alps with a friend, who has recently inherited a haunted chalet, drinking schnapps and solving ancient crimes with the clues the spiders have been weaving into their webs.
I hope this email finds you pursuing a degree in thaumaturgy under the supervision of John Dee, the cobbled streets of London beneath your battered shoes morphing into a map of celestial bodies when you walk home from the university.
I hope this email finds you cataloguing the library in the lost city of Atlantis while the shoal of sardines twirls your hair into elaborate knots, each representing a letter of the silent, secret alphabet known only to the drowned sailors.
I hope this email finds you where I could not go.
I hope this email finds your zeppelin hooked to the topmost tier of Fata Morgana. They say the clouds up there taste like candy floss and marshmallow.
I hope this email finds a way to reach you in the humid jungles of Venus. They say the terraforming project was a success and you will be receiving additional funding.
I hope this email finds a loophole in the rules established by the Snow Queen. They say a wireless access point with decent connection can now be constructed from shards of ice.
I hope this email finds the words I should have said to you.
I hope this email weaves like Ariadne’s thread in the darkness of the labyrinth, loops around the horns of the Minotaur.
I hope this email screams your name in the vast void of space and the generation ships carry it forward to their new home.
I hope this email slips through the fingers of the guards at the gates of Hades.
I hope this email is not too late.
I hope this wind fills the sails of your ship as it carries you over the Antikythera wreck minutes before the clockwork mechanism in the depths starts ticking.
I hope this set of wings fashioned from paper and wax holds your weight as you fly as close to the Sun as you wish.
I hope this attempt at connection is not futile.
I hope you made it out of Ur before the sands swallowed it whole.
I hope you made it out of Pompeii before its temples turned to ash.
I hope you made it out of that hospital in rural Minnesota, where the doctors dream of moving to a big city and the billing department overflows with bankruptcy claims.
I haven’t heard from you in a while.
I miss you.
Laila Amado is currently marooned on a small island halfway between Africa and Europe. She writes stories in her second language, lives in her fourth country, and cooks decent paella. Her stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Rejection Letters, Porcupine Literary, and other publications. You can find her on Twitter at @onbonbon7.
